Where's The Track???
In my pages about 'Diesels In the Wee County' I told the story of how the fortunes of the railways of Clackmannanshire spiraled doward until in 1993 all my remaining local lines had ceased to see even freight traffic and lay abandoned to weeds and vegetation. Oddly enough they were still active lines in a legal sense, but by 2004, when I took the pictures in this section, a train trying to travel through the 'Wee County' wouldn't have got very far before suffering damage or derailment! Here are a handful of images showing the state of the line in September 2004. I have kept the captions as brief as possible, but couldn't omit them completely as in most cases the locations are unidentifiable!!!
1. Not
actually the 'Wee County', but definitely in SAK territory as this
is the Kincardine branch looking back towards Alloa from the road
access to the site of the now demolished Kincardine Power Station. Some
track visible here, but behind the tree in the centre of the picture
the bushes were right over the trackbed.
2. Only
the track set in tarmac reveals this to be a view looking west at Alloa
Hilton Road LC. Despite being inside Alloa and frequently tresspassed
on by the locals, some of the most overgrown parts of the route were in
Alloa!
3. A
view from the footbridge at the back of the former Alexanders Midland
bus garage. Local dog-walkers have at least kept the 'fourfoot' visible
here!
4. Impossible
to identify? Very nearly - fortunately I took more pictures on the day than I
needed for this page and can tell from the ones taken immediately before and after
this one that this is (or ought to be!) a view of the site of
Alloa station taken from the Waggonway bridge.
5. In
theory this is a view from one of the overbridges in the west of Alloa
showing the deep cutting leading to Alloa West Junction LC - exactly
the same view as in the first picture on my 'SAK History' page but taken
19 years or so later. In practice however...
6. Looking
west at Alloa West Junction with the site of the demolished signal-box
on the left. No way through for trains here either!
7. And
the same story at Cambus LC looking east. In a way the state of this piece of line
is more surprising than the locations in previous pictures as it had trains using
it on the way to Alloa New Yard until the start of 1988!
8. At
last, a piece of trackbed that looks like a train could force it's way
through. In regular use until 1993, the only problem here is that a lot
of the rails have gone missing, probably for re-use elsewhere...
9. The
last picture in this section shows the view from the Cambuskenneth Road
LC at Causewayhead. Again some rails have gone missing but a post that
(I think) had the proceed light for the traincrew-activated
level-crossing has survived.
Disclaimer
These pages are owned and maintained by Jeffray Wotherspoon. The storage space for these pages is provided by the University Of Stirling, but it is in no way responsible for the contents of these pages. Please email me at jeff.wotherspoon@stir.ac.uk if you have any questions, comments, problems etc.